The Shield of Friendship
by shadowbroker13
Summary: The Elements of Harmony the most powerful and oldest artifacts in Equestria but what if there was another artifact just as powerful and as old as the Elements. This is the story of Crimson Shield and his adventures with his friends, while vowing to not only protecting them put all of Equestria with his life. R&R! OC centric story. OC X Derpy X Fluttershy.


**_The Shield of Friendship_**

Chapter 1: Under the Weeping Willow

* * *

Canterlot

_Clop clop clop clop_

Princess Celestia slowly walks around the selves of her own personal library, looking for a book to ease her boredom until she has to lower her sun and raise the moon. As she looks upon the shelves, she finds a book she hasn't read since she explained the Elements of Harmony to her most precious student, Twilight Sparkle.

**"The Tale of Nightmare Moon and the Elements of Harmony"**

She pulls the book out and walks back to her royal bedroom. She begins to think about the Elements of Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Loyalty, Laughter, and the Magic of Friendship.

_Each of these make up the Elements of Harmony but there is an artifact that is just as important as the Elements. The Shield of Friendship._ She sighs as she remembers one of the most mysterious and unknown artifact in her archives. The only facts known about it is that it is older than Discord himself, it contains the perfect balance of Light and Dark magic, and no pony has been able to wield it. _I can sense that it has as much magic as the Elements themselves, but what use is it if it finds no one worthy enough to wield it._

As she enters her room, she looks out on her balcony up to the moon and sees the Mare of the Moon, the very mare she banished a thousand years ago. _Soon, my sister. I cannot wait to have my precious sister back at my side._

Deep with the underground archives of Canterlot, a pure white steel shield with a strange symbol that looks like a violet cross made with interlocking loops and a black gunmetal edge sitting in a glass case starts to glow and hum with magic.

* * *

Ponyville

Pegasi are placing shadowy clouds in place, covering the usually bright sky with a dull, gloomy, dreary blanket as the ponies below were preparing for the thunderstorm that was scheduled to happen.

Out on the outskirts of the town, walking down the path that paths alongside the forest that surrounds the town and near the Apple tree fields that make up Sweet Apple Acres, is a huge, intimidating figure. He is clad by a dark black and royal violet cloak with a hood that shadows the face underneath, only allowing a few strands of dark crimson hair to fall out.

Bright blue eyes peer out from underneath the cowl, following the beaten path in front of him. He tilted his head up, looking at the dark and dreary clouds above while thinking,_ I can feel it; the rain will come pouring down soon. I need to get to town fast._

As he increases his stride, he faintly hears a quiet whimpering upon the wind as if someone is weeping in sadness. He turns towards the sound of sobbing, and walks upon a crying grey mare with a messy blonde mane crying underneath a willow tree.

He notices that she isn't aware of the coming rain or him, and as the rain starts to fall, the figure lays down next to the whimpering pony. From underneath his coat extends an ebony draconic wing and covers her to protect her from the downpour and chilly wiping wind. He just lay there, letting the mare cry her sadness out.

_Why can't I do anything right?_ The weeping mare sadly thinks, _I always mess up everything and everypony makes fun of me, even my friends are embarrassed to be around me… why do I feel so warm._

She starts to nuzzle into the source of the warmth. She opens her golden, crossed eyes and hears the sound of raining but notices that she is still dry. The golden-eyed mare looks up and sees a large crimson colored stallion wearing a black and violet cloak; his head was covered with a hood that shadows his face, and only his bright, stormy blue eyes shining with concern.

Before she can say anything, in a deep but smooth voice with a bit of an accent, he asks, "Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, why are you crying outside in the rain? Please dry those tears, a pretty mare like you should be weeping."

She blushes when she hears him call her pretty, but tears start to form in her golden-cross-eyes as she remembers what happened earlier today.

* * *

_Flashback:_

"DERPY HOOVES! Come to my office NOW!" yells Speedy Post, Manager of the Equestrian Mail and the boss of Derpy Hooves, who is walking down the hallway toward the manager office with her head and shoulders sagging.

As she slowly walks, she hears the quiet laughter that's directed at her from her coworkers. As she enters the office she sees the brown Pegasus sitting behind the desk. "Please sit down, Miss Hooves," Speedy Post states. "We need to discuss the event that happened earlier today."

"Yes, sir," Derpy says, sitting down in the chair. Her eye starts to move as the nervousness starts to creep in her. She knew why she is in trouble; she accidentally dropped a package when the wind picked up and blew her off balance and the clock inside it broke. The pony that she was delivering the package to was furious and called her a useless wall-eyed waste of space and doesn't understand why anypony especially the mail service would hire a stupid retard like her.

As she turns away to head back to the post office, all she can say is a soft and sad, "I'm sorry," with a tear running down her cheek.

A half an hour later, Derpy exits the office; they discussed the incident and basically said that this incident is going onto her permanent record and that she is being forced on a two-week non-pay vacation until all of this mess is cleared up. As she hangs up her mailbag, she overhears two mares talking behind her.

"Hey did you hear Wall-eyes over there screwed up again," says one of the mares.

"Yea, I heard she shattered Doctor Whooves new clock. I heard that it was expensive," says the other. "Why Mr. Post hired a Cross-eyed screw-up like her, I will never know."

"You know I heard she has a sister."

"Really?"

"Yea, a fraternal twin actually. Her sister graduated from Canterlot University a few years ago, if I heard correctly."

"I bet she's embarrassed to have a retard for a sister. Maybe she can give Wall-eyes some of her intelligence for her to be a normal pony."

"Hahaha. No, she needs the brains of all the ponies at Canterlot University to be even close to normal."

As the two mares walk away laughing, Derpy walks out of the building, tear droplets making a path behind her.

Later, Derpy flies over Ponyville with tears filled eyes, unable to understand the words those mares said about her. She tries to wipe the tears out of her eyes. When she looks up, a cyan colored missile crashes into her and both crash into the ground. Derpy gazes up and, after shaking the dizziness off, sees a rainbow and cyan colored blur before her eyes come into focus. Once they straighten out, it reveals the blur to be Rainbow Dash, her best friend alongside Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash looks up and, to the surprise of Derpy, glares at her. "Derpy! What do you think you're doing? You just ruined my trick that I was practicing for the Wonderbolts who are performing at the Celebration next week!" she says heatedly.

Derpy eyes start to water as Dash harshly rants at her, "I-I'm sor-sorry Das-"

"Sorry? SORRY!? How is 'Sorry' going to help me?

Sniff. "S-Sorry Dash, i-is there anything I can d-do?" Her shoulders start to slightly shake in silent sobs as Rainbow Dash seem to get even angrier.

"HELP? Yea you can help! You can help me by sitting over there," Rainbow Dash says as she points at a faraway hill, "and do nothing so you can't screw up any… thing… else." Rainbow Dash calms down as Derpy couldn't hold the tears any longer and starts to run down her face and starts to shake from crying.

Rainbow nervously scratches the back of her head. "Look, Derpy… I'm sorry… I'm just upset. I keep on messing up on the third spiral of my trick and I just snapped." Rainbow Dash looks nervously at the still crying Derpy. She wasn't good with people crying around her or with comforting somepony. "So we're cool, right?"

Derpy could only sadly nod as she looks at the ground so Dash can't see her tears.

Rainbow starts to fly up at seeing her friend nod, but not noticing the tears. "Cool! Alright, see you later, Derpy." And Rainbow Dash flies off leaving Derpy to walk away toward the forest.

Derpy, with tears still running down her face arrives to the edge of the forest, lies under a beautiful weeping willow tree and starts to cry. The pent up emotions finally flowed over as the storm clouds start to form above by the weather team

_Flashback End_

* * *

The stallion felt the tremendous sadness flowing from the mare currently crying into his chest as he wrapped his wing around her tighter. He could barely make out her saying, "W-Why c-can't I do any-anything right," and "W-Why do I-I ha-have these stupid eyes," between sobs.

His heart breaks at hearing the broken voice of the emotional defeated mare, he leans down and whispers into her ear, "I don't see anything unpleasant about your eyes. They are as unique as you are." She looks up into his bright stormy-blue eyes. "They have the most beautiful golden hue that I have ever seen, and they are brighter than Celestia's crown itself. In them, I also see a very strong mare, who has been dealt a hard life but still has the strength to pull through and still smile."

She looks back toward the ground and whispers in a slight melancholy tone, "You're just saying don't mean any of that." _Sniff._

He looks at her and says, "Well, I can only go by what I see in front of me, and what I see in front of me is a pretty blond mare who should not be crying her eyes out. Everypony has weaknesses, not even Celestia herself is perfect, even if nopony wants to believe it."

"Besides, you shouldn't worry about the ponies that can only see the imperfections on the surface and not see the beautiful gem on the inside for those who can are the only ones who matter the most," he says, smiling.

She starts to cry again, but not from sadness and self-loathing, but from relief and true happiness. She could literally feel the depressing emotions that filled her soul fade away with each word he spoke. Her mouth starts to spread into a true smile that she hasn't felt in a long time. He starts to grin as he sees her literally brighten with joy.

"HEY! Get away from her!"

He looks up to see two cyan colored hooves smack him in the face, sending him back a few feet. Looking up, a cyan colored Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane was holding her back hooves in pain. He stands back up onto his hooves and walks back over to the two mares.

Rainbow Dash feels like she just had a bucking contest against a steel wall and lost badly as she holds her hind hooves in pain. She glances up and silently gulps upon seeing the intimidating figure towering over them. _Oh, horseapples. He's bigger than Applejack's brother._

She steels herself, flies into his hood covered face and yells, "Hey, what do you think you're doing to Derpy, you big bully? Back off before I give you a beat down that'll make you go crying to your mama!" She raises her front hooves in a old school fighting style.

Derpy bites onto Dash's tail and pulls her away from her new friend, and gets in front of her. "Dashie Stop! Please."

Dash calms down a little bit, but still gives the figure a heated glare, before looking at Derpy. "But Derpy, he's making you cry. Why are you stopping me from beating this punk?"

"Because Dashie, he wasn't doing anything other than making me feel better. He found me under the tree crying my eyes out and tried to comfort me."

"Derpy…. I was worried about you I was trying to find you to ask you if you wanted to hang out with me tomorrow and I can show you my new stunt, but I couldn't find you, you wasn't at your house or anywhere. Why were you out here crying?"

As Derpy starts to explain why she was out here and what happened today, the figure stands off the side so he doesn't interrupt the moment while rubbing his jaw. _That mare can sure kick hard. My jaw is sore, I'm sure my jaw would have been broken if I didn't have such tough bones. She sure seems like a feisty one even thou I could see she was intimidated she still got in my face to protect her friend._

At the word friend, his heart feels like something was gripping it. _Friend… I've had acquaintances and comrades, but I never had a true friend. I thought I had a friend a long time ago, but she turned out like the rest of them… I even risked my life to protect that white mane show-mare and she still ran away without saying one word to me._ He could feel the loneliness start to slither its way into his soul. _I wish I could find a friend, I don't want to be alone anymore._

His eyes start to water a little before he realizes there is a grey foreleg waving in front of his face. He bends his head down and looked at the crossed-eyed mare looking up at him. "Sorry I was lost in thought," he sheepishly says, "can you say that again?"

Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes at his response while Derpy just gave a quiet giggle. "It's nothing. You looked spaced out with this silly looking face like this," says Derpy tries to imitate his face with her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, and he admits to himself it did look silly but made the crossed-eyed grey mare cute with her criss-cross golden eyes.

He lets out a chuckle before looking out from under the willow tree to see the rain letting up a little bit. He says, "Well, it looks like the rain is giving us a break so lets get into the town before it starts to pour again," and whispers under his breath, "and I still need to find a place to stay."

Derpy, while walking next to him, hears this and thinks it over.

"Umm…. If you need a place to stay for tonight… I got a spare room," she says bashfully, slightly blushing.

He looks to her, surprised; nopony ever has done that before. "But why? I-I mean I'm honored and all, but why?"

"Well… because you're my friend, and you helped me." He just stands there, surprised that she considered him a friend.

"Yo-You want to be my friend?" At this, Derpy nods happily. "But you don't even know me, and if you did, you probably wouldn't wa-"

"That doesn't matter. You still did more for me than anypony else, except for my friends Dash and Fluttershy and my family."

Rainbow Dash flies over to Derpy and says, "Derpy, we don't even know his name yet, and you still want him to be your friend? How can we even trust him?"

Derpy looks deep in thought for a minute before turning towards the hulking figure and asking, "Do you like muffins?!"

Cue face plant from Rainbow Dash, and a sweat drop from the figure. "Uh… yea, I love muffins."

Derpy looks back at Dash and says with a satisfactory tone, "See? I told you he can be trusted."

Dash just stares at Derpy. "What does muffins have ANYTHING to do with this?" she screams, face planting again at Derpy's response.

"Muffins are the food of the heavens."

"Argh, only Derpy," she says before getting back up.

The figure calmly walks up to them. "Um… maybe we can introduce ourselves would be helpful." He pulls back his hood revealing a handsome crimson stallion with a red mane that is a few shades darker than is coat. "My name is Crimson Shield, and I plan on moving to Ponyville."

Derpy blushes at the handsome colt, with Rainbow noticing the blush forming on Derpy's face and her wings starting to get stiff, saving the teasing for later. "M-My n-na-name is Der-Derpy," Derpy shyly introduces herself.

Rainbow smirks before flying up. "And my name is Rainbow Dash! The most awesomeness of awesome of ponies and future Wonderbolt flier!" She glides up to him and says, "I still don't trust you, bbuuuuttt if Derpy wants to be your friend, then you're ok, I guess."

Crimson Shield feels himself smile. He finally found some friends, but suddenly he frowns, realizing what he has to show them. "Derpy, Rainbow Dash, there is something I have to show you before you agree to be my friend."

At their confused looks he thinks to himself, _Well they would find out sooner or later so its better to show them now and save the heart break if they run away._ "If you don't want to be friends after this, I will understand." He looks down at the ground so he doesn't look at them.

From underneath his cloak, two black as night, draconic wings the size of an average sized pony each unfolded themselves and extend out, shadowing the two mares and also reveals his crimson body and his cutie mark in the shape of a black kite shield with a dark purple outline and a pair of White wings in the center of the shield.

He hears two distinct gasps and after a few seconds of silence, he turns away after folding his wings back underneath his cloak . With tears forming in his eyes, he starts to leave. But he is unexpectedly tackled to the ground with two forelegs wrapped tightly around his neck.

He looks down and sees Derpy holding onto his neck while saying, "You-You big dummy! Did you really think I would reject you like that after you made me feel better about my eyes?"

Crimson shield looks at Derpy in surprise. _she doesn't care about my wings? She still wants to be my friend._ He looks towards Rainbow Dash and is also surprised to see a smirk on her face.

"Yea. Besides, your wings are totally awesome!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

He looks back at Derpy and smiles, realizing his wishes finally came true, and he finally found some true friends. He hugs Derpy back and is amazed at how soft her fur is, blushing when he sees Derpy smile up at him. Luckily, his crimson fur covers it up. He stands up with Derpy and whispers, "Thank you" into her ear.

A smile spreads across his face as he says, "Now, let's get to town before the rain starts back up," a mischievous smile spreads across his face, "or Skittles over there decides to try and kick me in the face again."

"Yea, let's get back bef- WHAT did you call me!?" starts Rainbow Dash before flying into his face.

Crimson Shield can't help himself and says, "Hmm? You say something Skittles?" He runs off toward town with Rainbow Dash chasing after him yelling, "Get back here and take your beating like a stallion!" all with Derpy giggling at their antics.

A/N:

(1) The Shield in story image but black and white

(2) Purple Celtic Cross in the shield


End file.
